The idea for this spider web trellis came after reading about a spider web trellis in a book about gardening for kids. The book suggested using bamboo poles and twine to create a web. They went on to recommend that you plant a sweet pea plant to weave into the web.
JDaniel and I headed to Home Depot with the book in hand to see if we could find the materials and planst that we would need to create one for our backyard. We found out very quickly that they didn’t carry bamboo poles and that the customer service lady wouldn’t recommend using them. They will fall apart so quickly she said.
What did she recommend that we use instead? She pointed us to the metal poles that farmers used to make barbwire fences. “The poles have hooks built into them to attach the twine to,” she said. They were perfect. The fence poles are solid, won’t rot, and have those wonderful hooks.
The book then recommended a sweet pea plant, but they didn’t have any pea plants for sale. We then looked for the next thing on the list twine. They had a gardening twine so, we grabbed a roll of that before heading to the register.
JDaniel and I must have visited three other nurseries and didn’t find sweet pea plants. One recommended I buy seeds instead, but they didn’t carry them. The second nursery suggested we try Martin’s Nursery in the next town over so, we headed there.
They didn’t have them, but I wonderful lady there suggested that we try the Trumpet Creeper. “It will grow up to thirty feet long and will be flexible enough to weave,” she told us. When I told her about the twine I was going to use, she told us that was a bad idea. “It is going to rot,” she said. She recommended that we use a heavy string.
It was decided that we stopped by to pick up the string later in the day. JDaniel was ready to stop looking for spider web trellis materials by then. This gardening for kids project would have to wait awhile before getting started.
When we did have everything we needed, we headed into the backyard with our fence poles, string, Trumpet Creeper, and a variety of gardening tools ( large shovels, small hand shovels, scissors, a hammer and more)
The first thing we did was to plant the poles. It was a little tricky. We found that after about eight inches of dirt we have clay. Digging through the clay was a workout. JDaniel and I both took turns trying to dig through it.
Once we got the hole as deep as we could, I put a folded washcloth over the top of the pole and hammered it in. While I did that, JDaniel started the hole for the second post.
Creating the web was JDaniel’s favorite part. I had to show him how to pull the string tightly around the poles and attach it to the hooks at the beginning. He got the hang of it very quickly. He took the string across around and down over and over again.
The web got bigger and more elaborate as he wove it. The string went over and across our plant a couple of times. When I felt like we had a enough string on the web, I tied it off tightly and we both stepped back to look at it. We were both very pleased with it.
Would you like to make one of your on?
Here is our gardening for kids web supply list:
- two green metal fence posts
- a roll of heavy white string or twine
- a plant that will creep or spread like a vine
This is a wonderful garden for kids. I hope you will try to make a spider web trellis too.
>This post is link to Dig Into Gardening. ( A gardening link up for kids that I am co-hosting)
Here are some more gardens for kids projects:
Love this idea!
I think we may try this.
How fun! Scott plants our garden. He loves doing it. The kids love to help harvest.
I went to JoAnn’s today and they have a ton of kids gardening supplies. Might be fun to go shopping for fun tools! 😉
What a great helper you have! If I didn’t have a black thumb, I would do this with my little one.
That’s so neat – you’ll have to do an after picture later this summer!
What a totally fun project!
Growing things is such a great activity for kids. My grandkids love helping out in their dad’s garden.
=)
Beautiful!!!
That is awesome!
I think it came out great too, and the kids DO love to help. It makes it tons more fun too. 🙂
Such a great project!
what a wonderful and great idea to do! Seems like he enjoyed every minute of it. Happy Saturday Sharefest.
I need to make a trellis and this is perfect to get my son to help me!
Love this. We have broken all the advice as we use bamboo poles and string for our bean stalks. Of course it is still snowing here, so our garden is delayed!
Very cool! Thanks for linking up with Pin It! Tuesday! I think my son would enjoy this as well!
What an adventure! Thanks for the project and the story. Visiting from Pin it Tuesdays. I would love it if you visit my blog too. calliescrafts.blogspot.com
Really fun activity! My boys would love it. Thanks for sharing!! If you have time, I would love it if you shared it on my blog hop today–http://teachingmama.org/ Thanks!!
A friend of mine used hops, which is a very fast-growing vine that might be better for (impatient) kids. : )
Hi! This i a great post and I wanted to let you know that I linked to it in my post today!
http://wingswormsandwonder.com/2014/07/gardens-on-a-string-the-how-and-why-of-trellising/